Nitish in Delhi for three days, meets Rahul

This is the first meeting between the two leaders since Kumar snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last month and formed a Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar with the RJD, Congress and outside support of the Left.

As part of his plans to unite the opposition for the 2024 parliamentary elections, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi, shortly after arriving in the national capital on a three-day visit during which he is also likely to meet a host of leaders from various parties, said a leader close to the Janata Dal (United) leader.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar meets Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Monday. (PTI)

This is the first meeting between the two leaders since Kumar snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last month and formed a Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar with the RJD, Congress and outside support of the Left.

In Delhi, Kumar is likely to meet several Opposition leaders, including the NCP’s Sarad Pawar, AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and JDS supremo H D Kumaraswamy during his visit.

He is also likely to meet Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and leaders from the Left parties.

Talking to reporters upon his arrival in Delhi, Kumar said he would also meet the President and the Vice President during his stay in the national capital.

Before leaving for Delhi, Kumar called on Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad in Patna. Prasad’s younger son and deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav later shared a few photographs of Kumar with the RJD chief.

Nitish Kumar’s Delhi’s visit comes two days after he vowed to confine BJP to 50 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The Bihar CM’s plan to dislodge BJP from power at the Centre recently got support from his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao, who met him and the RJD chief recently in Patna and gave a call for “BJP-mukt (free) Bharat” by forging an alliance of all opposition parties minus the Congress and the Left.

However, Nitish Kumar does not appear too convinced about KCR’s idea. “The plan to unseat BJP from power may not yield desired result without the Congress and Left parties,” he told reporters on Sunday after the national council meeting of his party JD(U).

Kumar is currently heading a seven-party coalition that includes Congress and the Left. Kumar is likely to receive ample support from Prasad, who is known to share excellent personal equations with top Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.

National JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh, Bihar’s water resources minister Sanjay Kumar Jha and building construction department minister Ashok Choudhary are accompanying CM Kumar on his Delhi visit.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) said it has decided to maintain a distance from the JD(U) since there has been no official communication to the party from the Mahagathbandan.

Sources in the Mamata Banerjee-led party here said the Trinamool believes that regional parties should fight and defeat the BJP in their respective regions and not come to Delhi for support.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi ridiculed Nitish Kumar’s call for dislodging the BJP from power. “Several leaders like NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee have miserably failed in their bid to counter the popularity of Narendra Modi. Kumar too will meet the same fate,” said the Rajya Sabha member who has served as deputy of the Bihar chief minister for more than a decade.